Nocturnal

The Basement

Bryan Clauser stood in the shadows of trees that were themselves drenched in the shadows of tall buildings. He flexed his hands, fists making his leather gloves creak. He stared at the back of the gray house.

He stared at the cellar door.

The basement. Whatever bad thing was happening, it was in the basement. He had to know.

The cellar door waited for him, a demon mouth ready to open and bite, to chew and shred and tear and crunch. Dream-memories blurred his reality, merged and shifted with what he saw until he wasn’t sure what was actually there.

Come closer, the house seemed to say. Come, little fool, save me the trouble of reaching out to pull you in …

His Nikes slid across the grass, carrying him to the door. He bent, reached out a hand, touched. It wasn’t wood. Heavy-gauge metal, painted to look like the same wood as the rest of the house. In the door’s upper left corner, a key-pad lock. The thing was bomb-shelter solid — he couldn’t open it.

Was he dreaming? Was this really happening?

Did you think it would be easy? the house said. You’ll have to work harder to find your death …

Bryan closed his eyes and rubbed them hard with the heels of his hands. He wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t. He had to get in there.

You think a house is talking to you. Sounds crazy to me …

“I’ll burn you to the ground,” Bryan said. “Burn you and piss on the coals.”

Then you’ll never know what’s inside … neverknow … neverknow …

Bryan bit hard into the heel of his left hand. The pain rose up, clearing his thoughts. That helped. He wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t.

He walked to a window and peeked in. Beyond the glass, the dull gleam of metal revealed some kind of inside shutter. It looked just as tough as the cellar entrance.

He’d have to try the front door.

Bryan drew his Sig Sauer and walked down the side of the house, his left shoulder almost touching the slate-blue wood, shadows curling around him in a lover’s embrace.

Pookie turned onto Franklin Street, then floored it. The Buick’s engine roared. He kept to the middle lane as much as he could, swerving left or right when he needed to, running red lights with little care for what might happen.

He’d dressed for the occasion. No ill-fitting suit jacket this time. Black jeans, black shoes, a black sweater stretched over his gut, and the black Glock 22 in the black holster attached to his black belt. It was a fashion statement that would win the Bryan Clauser seal of approval. Pookie didn’t use the bubble-light or the siren. Couldn’t draw attention. If any other cops showed up, the Terminator was screwed.

He hoped Black Mr. Burns would get there quick.

The Harley’s big twin engine roared at the night, the sound bouncing off the buildings on either side to fill the street with an echoing, angry gurgle.

John forced himself to breathe. His neck already hurt from trying to look in all directions at once. So many buildings, so many windows, so many places for someone to hide, to point a gun.

He rolled the throttle back and the Harley picked up speed. He slipped around a truck, then lane-split between a pair of BMWs. Maybe someone was aiming at him right now, tracking him, lining up the shot.

The feeling pressed his chest inward like a tightening vise wrapped all the way around his ribs. His breaths came faster. He was starting to hyperventilate.

He shook his helmeted head. Bryan needed him. So did Pookie.

Just this once. He could push the fear down just this once, and for a single night be a man again.

Gun in hand, Bryan walked up the mansion’s wide steps. Traffic rolled along on Franklin Street behind him, but it was a part of some other world, some other dimension.

Bryan stood before the front door. The porch roof blocked the streetlights, bathing him in the night’s thick black. He reached out a hand, let his fingertips touch the double doors’ ornate wood.

Come on, little one, come and taste the end …

“Shut up,” Bryan hissed. “Shut up, I’m not hearing this.”

You and only you hear it. And they call you the Terminator? You’re a joke, and here you are walking to your own death. Come on, little one, don’t you want to know what’s inside? Neverknow … neverknow …

“You talk too much,” Bryan said, then he raised his left foot and kicked just below the door handle. Wood cracked with a cannon-blast sound. The double doors flew open, the right one tumbling into the hallway beyond to crash hard against the floor. The door had looked a lot more solid than that; must have been some cheap pine and not the old oak Bryan had thought it was at first glance.

Then came the blaring shrill of an alarm.

Bryan walked inside. He didn’t notice his surroundings. He was looking for one thing and one thing only.

Somewhere in here was a door to the basement.

The break-in tripped a magnetic sensor, which sent a signal down a thin wire to the small alarm-control box in the basement. That had triggered the Klaxon that screeched through the house, but the system wasn’t finished. A telephone wire ran out of the control box into a multi-line office phone, the kind that had once been white but had yellowed with well over two decades of age. The phone had a handset, next to which ran a vertical line of eight buttons, each with a red light. The red light next to LINE ONE lit up. The phone’s speaker let out a brief dial tone, then seven rapid digital beeps.

Pookie saw the tall turret of Erickson’s mansion up on the left. Cars lined the curb, leaving nowhere to park. He saw the house’s driveway — it was wide open. He didn’t want to park there and draw attention from anyone who might be in the house, but he was out of time. He pulled in, locking up the breaks to skid agross the gravel. He grabbed his Streamlight Stinger flashlight and was out the door even before the Buick rocked back from the sudden stop. He heard the house’s ringing alarm. Pookie ran to the mansion’s steps, up to the porch, and saw the smashed-open front doors.

Bryan was already inside. Pookie had to get him out.

In the distance, over the alarm’s blare, he heard the oncoming heavy gurgle of a Harley.

Pookie drew his Glock. Gun in one hand, flashlight in the other, he entered the house, stepping past the fallen door that lay flat on the entryway floor. The alarm screeched its constant, metallic tone. Pookie knelt and aimed his flashlight beam at the door’s edge — it was solid oak. Almost two inches of solid oak, strong as hell. Had Bryan done that? With what? A pair of deadbolts winked in his moving flashlight beam. Then Pookie saw something else — a three-foot-long steel bar, the kind used to secure a door.

The bar was bent at one end.

Bryan had ripped through a superthick door, two big deadbolts, and a fucking steel bar.

Pookie remembered seeing Bryan jump up on top of the van. It had been dark … he’d been far away … his eyes had been playing tricks on him, et cetera, et cetera. He’d told himself those things, deluded himself into thinking that Bryan was just Bryan and not something else.

Images flashed in Pookie’s thoughts: a cloaked man jumping across a street, from one building to the next; a body with the arm ripped off at the shoulder; Robin talking about new genes and mutations.

Everything connected.

“Oh, shit,” Pookie said.

Bryan was in more trouble than either of them had ever imagined.

Pookie stood, let his flashlight beam play across the house’s dark interior as he walked deeper inside.

The sounds of nighttime traffic filtered up from the street four stories below. The evening wind danced by, not quite strong enough to ruffle his green cloak. His ears had long since tuned out the normal sounds of the city. The only things that he really heard, that he really listened for, were gunshots, screams and — sometimes — the roars.

Below him was Rex Deprovdechuk’s house. Police tape across the door. Would the kid come back? Unknown, but where else to look? Rex had vanished, as had Alex Panos.

Staking out Alex’s apartment had paid off. Alex had come home. The result? Another dead member of Marie’s Children. The Issac boy had died up on the roof, but that was how things went.

Everyone dies eventually.

Beneath the heavy cloak, he felt a buzz from his pager. The house. He didn’t need to look at the pager to know this.

His hands did a fast, automatic pat-down: bow tight on his back; quiver secured, all ten shafts in place; Fabrique Nationale 5.7-millimeter handgun secure in the holster strapped to his left thigh; four loaded, twenty-round magazines at the small of his back; silver-coated Ka-Bar knife snug in the sheath on his right thigh; and minigrenades strapped to the bandolier across his chest — two concussion, two thermite, two shrapnel.

It had been a very long time since he’d had visitors. He had to get home, show them some hospitality.

Bryan stood at the bottom of the basement stairs. He wasn’t sure if he could move. Every atom in his body screamed at him to stop. His dreams, where he’d killed people, eaten people, those had been bad, perhaps the worst things he’d ever experienced.

But those hadn’t been the only dreams.

The dream of being dragged … dragged into this basement. Hurt, wounded, afraid, bleeding — dragged into this basement by a monster.

A monster that could be down here, waiting.

No, the monster was gone; Bryan had watched it leave.

But when would it return?

The house alarm wasn’t as loud down here. His flashlight beam bounced through the blackness, illuminating a glossy wooden floor, crown molding, even a fireplace. The long space looked like a small ballroom from days gone by.

At the back of the room, he saw a door. Engraved letters gleamed from a brass plaque. They spelled out: RUMPUS ROOM.

Bryan walked toward the door.

Pookie had to hurry, he knew that, but he couldn’t look away — he needed just a few seconds to take it all in. Everything his flashlight lit up seemed to reek of money. Turn-of-the-century money. The place looked like it was taken out of a movie from the days of the lumber barons, the gold barons, the whatever barons. Back then, men had built places like this for their wives and daughters, to impress the city or simply to let everyone know just how rich they were. Pookie was standing in the nineteenth-century equivalent of a red sports car.

A heavy staircase rose up to his right. To his left, something glowed from within a wide, open doorway. Pookie stepped through. Inside of a marble fireplace guarded by two knee-high brass sphinxes, dying coals gave off a faint, flickering light. His flashlight beam played off endless splendor: a sparkling crystal chandelier; polished redwood paneling with hand-carved trim; marble floors with thick grains of granite and thin streaks of gold; gleaming brass fixtures; ornate picture frames showing faces of spooky-looking rich dudes.

Outside, he heard the distinctive roar of an approaching Harley, an oncoming Doppler effect that didn’t transition to the fadeaway because the engine idled, then stopped. Pookie pinched his flashlight under his right arm. He pulled out his phone and dialed with his left hand even as he continued to turn, his right hand pointing the Glock before him.

He stopped when his flashlight illuminated an open door.

Through the door were stairs leading down.

The phone rang only twice before Black Mr. Burns answered: “I’m here, man, but I’m flipping out,” he said. “Where the hell are you?”

“Inside.”

“Want me to come in?”

“Not yet,” Pookie said. “Get on the porch and stay there. Don’t let anyone in, not even cops. I’ll call if I need you.”

Pookie hung up. He had to trust that John could manage his fear and control anything that came up. Pookie took a breath, then started down the stairs.

Footsteps. Heavy ones. Bryan shut off his flashlight. He aimed his Sig Sauer back across the ballroom floor toward the base of the stairs. He saw a flashlight beam sliding down the steps, flicking around, followed by legs, then a portly, black-sweater-clad belly that could only belong to one man.

The flashlight beam whipped across the walls, then landed squarely in Bryan’s eyes.

Bryan blinked, held up a hand to block the light. “Pooks, do you mind?”

The beam dropped to Bryan’s feet.

“Clauser! You are seriously chapping my ass. Come on, man, we have to get out of here, now.”

Bryan turned his back to Pookie, played his own beam across the dull-brass plaque. The letters of RUMPUS ROOM gleamed and danced.

“Through here,” he said.

“Bryan, no. Dude, come on, the game is over and we lost. If we’re caught here, we are so screwed.”

“I’m not leaving until I figure this out, so you might as well help.”

Pookie sighed and walked forward to stand at Bryan’s right shoulder.

“Clauser, you are such an A-W-G-M-K.”

“That a new one?”

“Yeah, I made it up just now. It means you are an Asshole Who’ll Get Me Killed.” Pookie played his beam across the wooden door’s gloss, then let it rest on the intricate brass handle. “Bryan, just tell me one thing. Is this worth going to prison for?”

“It is,” Bryan said.

“And you got the memo about what happens to cops in prison?”

Bryan nodded. “It’s worth that, too.”

“Awesome,” Pookie said. “I was afraid you’d say that. I don’t suppose this door is open?”

“Nope.”

“Double awesome. Well, I guess we can say aloha to Honolulu Homicide.”

Bryan closed his eyes and shook his head. His career was over, he knew that, but he didn’t need to drag Pookie along for the ride. “Pooks, maybe you should just go.”

“A little late for that, Bri-Bri. I’m already fired, and you already said this meant enough to you that you’d go to prison for it. I’ll finish the job.”

Pookie was still all-in. There was no point in arguing, Bryan would have done the same for him.

“I think what we need is on the other side,” Bryan said. “Let’s figure out how to get this door open.”

It wasn’t the first time they’d attacked his house. Every ten years or so, one or two of them got stupid enough to forget what happened to the last one or two, and they came for him. They’d always known right where his house was … all they had to do was come over and kill him.

They had tried the back door, the windows, even the roof. Over the years he’d sealed all of those things up. As well as he could, anyway — some of them were so strong there was little you could do to keep them out. One industrious little monster had even tunneled in, going right through the basement concrete.

He’d killed them all.

The tunneler was still his favorite. The stupid bastard had dug right up into the rumpus room. Savior hadn’t even had to move him — he’d just cut the intruder’s spinal cord so he couldn’t walk, then went to work.

Oh, how that one had screamed.

They screamed, they begged, they threatened. And yet for all their useless words, they never — ever — gave up the information Savior most needed to know.

Such was the way of things.

The pager told him the front door had been breached, so he approached from the roof of the building across the street. He looked down at his front porch. Below the peaked roof, he saw a man standing in front of the house’s front doors — a black man wearing a purple motorcycle jacket, holding a gun that he kept pointed to the ground.

The man turned. Streetlights played off something hanging around his neck, bouncing off his chest.

A flash of gold.

A badge?

Perhaps the intruders had already left. It wasn’t the first time the police had come to his house after a break-in, but he had to be careful. You never knew when the bastards would get clever and try a new tactic.

He pulled off his cloak, wrapping the pistol, the grenade bandolier, the magazines and other gear inside. He stuffed the whole package in a space between an air conditioner and the roof wall, out of sight. Everything except the knife. That he moved to the small of his back, under his shirt — maybe a single knife didn’t seem like much against the monsters, but it had never failed him before.

And, sometimes, the knife was just plain more fun.

Bryan watched Pookie slide a thin piece of metal into the lock. “Anything?”

“Yes,” Pookie said. “This gives me an idea — in Blue Balls, all cops will be able to pick locks. Makes plots so much easier.” He stood and put the tools in his pocket. “I give up. Just kick the fucking thing.”

The door looked far too heavy for that. Whatever was behind it, the owner didn’t want anyone getting in.

“Pooks, look at this thing, it’s like a bank vault.”

Pookie let out a snort of a laugh. “Bryan, you kicked in the front door of this house, right?”

Bryan nodded.

“By chance, did you look at said door before you treated it to a taste of your Bryan booties?”

Bryan thought of telling Pookie how he’d been distracted because he thought the house was talking to him, but figured that now wasn’t the time. “I didn’t really look at it. I just, you know … I just had to get in.”

Pookie pointed his flashlight beam at the door’s handle. “Then do me a favor. Realize that you just have to get in here.”

“But, Pooks, I’m telling you that—”

“Would you just kick the thing? Trust me for once, will you? Kick that motherfucker with everything you got.”

This wasn’t the time for games, but Pookie would just keep at it until Bryan caved. He stepped back, took a breath, then raised his left foot and pushed-kicked out as hard as he could.

It made a big bang, but the door didn’t budge.

“See? I told you.”

Pookie pointed his flashlight to the door handle. The wood around it had cracked. “Hit it again.”

Bryan didn’t understand. The door must have looked stronger than it actually was. They’d caught a break. He reared back and kicked again.

The door flew open.

Bryan and Pookie pointed their guns into the darkness beyond. They slowly stepped through.

Something in there. For a second, Bryan couldn’t make it out.

Then Pookie’s flashlight beam lit it up.

Bryan fired three shots, the gun’s roar sharp and deafening in the confined space.

John heard the gunshots. In that same second, he started to shake. He should never have left his apartment. He shouldn’t have come here, shouldn’t have come here! He felt dizzy before he realized he’d stopped breathing. He sucked in a breath so big it wheezed like a marathon runner crossing the finish line.

John stepped into the dark house, feet finding spots around the broken oak door. The alarm blared a constant, undeniable sound.

Pookie and Bryan could be in trouble. John had to go toward the gunshots, he had to, but he couldn’t—

—his cell phone buzzed, making him twitch with surprise. He pulled the phone out of his pocket and answered.

“Pookie! You okay?”

“We’re fine,” Pookie said. “Just stay out there.”

John returned to the porch. He leaned against the waist-high wooden railing opposite the door. He saw a young couple across the street, huddling with each other against the night’s cold; they stared at the mansion. And farther to the right, a homeless guy, standing there and watching. The lookie-loos had begun to gather.

“Pooks, hurry up,” John said. “With this alarm, a black and white will be here any second and the natives are getting restless.”

“We’re almost done,” Pookie said. “Just stay there.”

Pookie hung up. John sucked in another ragged breath as he slid the phone into his pocket. He moved closer to the broken door, staying as far back in the porch’s shadows as he could.